An online media distribution service typically distributes media programming to viewers over the Internet or a similar network. Media programs distributed by such services may include television programs, movies, other audio/visual content, audio content and/or the like that are obtained from one or more sources. Typically, viewers can connect to the online distribution service using a conventional web browser or other client program to obtain streaming or file-based programming as desired.
Media distribution services often receive their distributed content from any number of different production sources, syndicators, web-based services and/or other media sources as appropriate. Providing content from multiple sources, however, can create a number of challenges. Often, each content source has its own set of techniques and formats for delivering new material. Media files may be delivered, for example, using any number of different transport techniques and channels. Moreover, files may be received in any number of different compressed and/or uncompressed formats that may be transcoded or otherwise converted before the content is made available for distribution to viewers. Further, as viewers use an increasing variety of client devices (e.g., mobile phones, video game players, and other portable devices), it may be desirable to encode/transcode received content into any number of different distribution formats (e.g., different formats, and/or other files of different sizes, bit rates, frame rates, resolutions and/or other parameters) to accommodate a variety of viewers and viewing devices. Hence, the types and amounts of transcoding or other processing that may be performed on the received content prior to distribution can be significant.
Moreover, many different content providers have unique formats for the metadata that describes the media content itself. Most websites provide at least some description of the content that is distributed: this description may include the name of the program, names of actors/actresses, a brief description of the programming, any ratings or parental control information, and/or any other information as desired. This “metadata” information about the programming content may be provided by the content provider with the media content itself, or it may be retrieved from any other source. In either case, formatting of the metadata can be a significant challenge due to the wide variety of formats that may be used by any number of different data sources.
Content distributors therefore frequently encounter any number of challenges in converting received programming into formats that are suitable for distribution to customers. Typically, the large volume of content received, the relative frequency of content delivery and the desire to make content available as quickly as possible makes manual processing of received programming impractical, or at least undesirable in many implementations.
It is therefore desirable to create systems, methods and/or devices that automate at least some of the process for encoding media programs from any number of sources and/or for processing the metadata associated with such sources. These and other desirable features and characteristics will become apparent from the subsequent detailed description and the appended claims, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and this background section.